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Monday, 15 July 2013

Sunshine, Champagne & something to celebrate!

It was my mums birthday last week so we headed off to the old favourite (Allard's obviously) for cocktails– Allard's Pimms (hard to go wrong), a maple something or other (tad easy to drink!),

a basil bramble (all ice and no cocktail– but good) and a Blueberry lemonade (again TOO EASY TO DRINK).

Happy from each others company! Or was it the cocktails?

Ian joined us for a quick pint before we all headed along the road to Barca Art Cafe for a bite to eat.

Camera shy?

The food was delicious. Oh my goodness good. But I ruined it by deciding to try a G&T for the first time.

Who on earth can find any sort of pleasure from drinking that, I don't know! Yuck. And I stupidly went for the special rosewater one.

Rosewater? Really? It's just perfume you can swallow without damaging your organs. Ian's was ok, the cucumber made it better. Should have stuck with prosecco like Angie!

Other than that, Barca has super friendly staff and a quirky vibe. Also great for sunday lunch!

We had this sharing platter to start, 'chosen by the chef depending on his mood'.

He must have been in a very good mood.

Lamb with loads of lovely things. Whatever I can't remember they were, they were scrumptious.

Apparently this was a good steak, I wouldn't know.

I do know though, that this orange duck was pretty sweet. Orange as in flavour, not colour– just to clear things up.

We headed out to Durham on the Saturday to continue celebrations with some close family friends.

The day was hot, busy and covered in champagne. Well Pimms, then a coconut mohito (fabulousamazingloveit) followed by a raspberry mohito (justasamazingwantanother) and then I might have just had a little glass of champers.... Anyhow! The first bar we went to took 30 minutes to bring us our jug of Pimms which was almost fruitless and served in a 'I couldn't be bothered to clean this properly' jug.

Very silly place to put a plant.

After this fiasco however, we had a great day! Searched for somewhere to eat to suit everyones taste buds and ended up in the very quaint Cotton's, which is great for afternoon tea and light lunch, with super lovely staff.

Nelly's best pose!

There was a brass festival on too! Very cool.

Whisky River and Ebony were visited during the rest of the afternoon, the later of which is a seriously nice champagne bar near the Gala theatre in Durham. Well worth a visit!

Outside of Whiskey River, that's the wear. Y'know, the other half of Tyne & Wear and all that.

Whisky River did that fantastic coconut mohito I mentioned earlier and is right on the river (as the name suggests) so if it's sunny, try and grab a seat outside!

Couldn't handle the hair being up eventually. Let it loose I say!

COCONUT MOHITO. That is all.

Ebony, ebony, ebony. How wonderful you were.

Ebony is the kind of place you walk into and worry your terribly underdressed, but in a good way. Nice people, nicely dressed, nice atmosphere. You just hope you're dressed as good!

Raspberry mohito!

Champagne? Pink? Oui Monsieur!

Love Angie me. Happy 21st mamma!

The day was ended on a high at Chiquito's, where we laughed the night away with magic tricks and burger buns– or lack of them! One of Ian's best mates, Neil ordered a naked burger expecting it to come with a bun but no dressing or lettuce etc. When the opposite arrived it's safe to say it took him a while to figure it out! He almost asked the waiter where the bun was! Kept us all hooting for at least 20 minutes! But you can probably tell that from my excesive use of exclamation marks! Fancy another? Oh, you're bored of exclaiming? Ok then... And Tracey (Nelly's wife) has a laugh that is enough to make you cry! That was the last one, I promise! Woops.

Good, good day. Sunshine made it EVEN better. Please stay?

I've just been to York this weekend for the Pappas birthday so will hopefully be posting some pictures from that tomorrow!